Profit Opportunity
by PlatinumPlayer
Summary: When Akane gave Ranma's engagement to her, Nabiki saw it as a profit opportunity. String him along, make a few yen, then toss him back. The problem? Akane really thinks Nabiki is in love with Ranma and won't take him back. The real problem? Akane might be right... halfway anyways.
1. Chapter 1

Profit Opportunity

Description: When Akane gave Ranma's engagement to her, Nabiki saw it as a profit opportunity. String him along, make a few yen, then toss him back. The problem? Akane really thinks Nabiki is in love with Ranma and won't take him back. The real problem? Akane might be right... halfway anyways.

Author Notes: Just a random chapter I threw together in an hour, Nabiki is clearly OOC, but over all I think it works. May or may not continue this, review if you like!

Chapter One: Denial

"F..free!" Nabiki strained, every fiber of her materialistic being screaming out in protest as she said the forbidden word. "You can have him back for free, just this once." She stared desperately into her little sisters eyes, hands grasping her shoulders shaking her pleadingly.

"Nabiki." Akane looked down, and aside... a mournful heartfelt pang of guilt etched across her face. "I know how you feel for Ranma now, all this time I have been standing in your way. Please... forget I was ever engaged to him. I won't stand in your way anymore. So... just be honest with yourself. Okay?" Akane perked up and gave her an honest sisterly smile... Nabiki collapsed.

'How can this be!?' Nabiki boggled grasping her head like she was going insane. How could it be 'this', 'this' lie of all things that her little sister decided to believe her on. Where had all the years of swindling, cheating, and otherwise betraying her just vanished off to? Did she honestly think Nabiki had not been lying when she told Ranma she loved him? Was she so thick headed that she forgot there was very little Nabiki said unless she was playing an angle? 'Akane you baka!'

"Please." Nabiki collected herself, took a breath, and stood. Hands on Akane's shoulders, check. Eyes locked and earnest, check. The forbidden word p..prepped, check. Deep breath... "Akane, believe me when I tell you I don't love Ranma. It was all a lie to get him to go along with my crazy scheme to make some yen. So when I say you can have him back, I mean it. For free."

Akane looked torn, apprehensive, and appeared to be considering the words. An angry look began to spread across her face, a good sign! But as Akane spoke... it turned out to be false hope. "Nabiki, I don't know why your saying all this. We both know your lying, you love Ranma, I heard you confess. If it's because you're afraid of his other fiancée's or his rivals... I'll support you." Akane grasped her forearms reassuringly, a look of flaming determination. "I won't let anyone get between you and Ranma, I promise."

Nabiki felt like she had just been smacked by Akane's hammer, listless and confused. She stumbled, and collapsed depicting the perfect image of a tragic condemned soul. Melodramatically she fell back body splayed across the floor in the middle of the hall. Doomed, she was completely doomed. It had all been for profit, just for profit! This couldn't be happening, this couldn't be happening!

"Is something wrong?" Kasumi sweetly inquired peeking her head out into the hall to find Akane staring down at Nabiki with a frustrated glare, and Nabiki lain out looking pale with a awkward smile on her face... laughing softly in a rather scary manner.

"Nabiki is just being immature." Akane scuffed and turned walking away chin held high feeling proud of herself for supporting her sister, but upset that her sister was throwing away her feelings. Kasumi looked a little confused, but her sweet smile remained as she ducked back into the dining room and forgot about the matter all together.

"That can be happening!" Nabiki cried out defiantly, but no one was left there to hear her... at least not for several minutes until a certain red haired sex changed martial artist stumbled across her fresh from the bath.

"Hey um, Nabiki. You okay?" Ranma peered down toweling 'her' hair dry... shirtless, dressed 'only' in her boy shorts. Nabiki stared up... a dry almost exasperated expression on her face. The angle she had... priceless. Ranma stood so close that there was nothing obstructing her upward gaze from seeing every inch of her... right up through the baggy legs of her boy shorts.

Was Ranma doing this on purpose? Was he some sort of closet exobitionist when in female form? There was a pile of past evidence to support it, and Nabiki didn't need but a moment to recall each and every specific instance. Ranma's nude female form was a difficult thing for her to forget... apparently. And right now she was seeing a part of Ranma she very rarely did. Despite how much Ranma protested he was a boy... there was nothing 'boy' about what Nabiki was currently seeing between Ranma's thighs.

"Hello, Nabiki?" Ranma-chan crouched down and waved a hand over Nabiki's eyes.

"What is it, Saotome?" Nabiki questioned coldly, expression steeled at the loss of her free show and refocused her vision to Ranma's eyes. The light pink flush that colored her cheeks a lie, just a figment of her imagination.

"You look kind of red, you have a fever or something?" Ranma took notice, of course he would. It only deepened Nabiki's resentment and strengthened her glare.

"I'm fine." Nabiki announced and slapped aside Ranma's hand, the hand that had just reached down in an attempt to take her temperature. Ranma looked confused as Nabiki pushed herself up to sit and stand. "Was there something else?" she coldly inquired peering over her shoulder at 'her'... yep still topless.

"Nothing." Ranma admitted with an odd expression, probably picking up on how weird Nabiki was acting. In any case he hopped up from his crouch and wandered off down the hall into the dining room continuing to towel his hair. The sound of newspaper being pulled in half came an instant later... no doubt her father's knee jerk reaction to seeing a topless Ranma walking past.

Groaning Nabiki took one step to the right facing the wall, and let her head thump against it. Eyes closed her expression turned self incriminating. The heat from her face, chest, and other places she cared not mention, was more than enough evidence to remind her once again that even if she didn't love Ranma... There was one part of her that did. The part of her that just wanted to jump 'her' bones.

'Damn you Ranma... do you have 'any' idea what you do to me?' Her eyes turned scary as they opened. If Ranma ever learned about this horrible secret... she might just have to kill him for it. Another deep breath to calm herself and then she turned sharply in the direction of the stairs and her room. This situation was unacceptable, she had to think.

Plan A of reuniting Ranma and Akane was a bust, it just meant she had to make a plan B, and if plan B didn't work... worst case was Ranma had several other girls chasing him. If Akane wouldn't take him, one of them surely would. As long as someone, anyone, other than her was stuck with him... then Nabiki could be happy. Not even the privilege of inheriting the dojo and sell it off for wealth was worth being tied to Ranma. She had to get rid of this engagement, if it was the last thing she did!


	2. Chapter 2

Profit Opportunity

Author Notes: Just another short and silly chapter. Till a proper plot or conflict develops expect more of the same. Till then, read and review! Also, thanks for the feedback, I made the corrections.

Chapter Two

"Nabiki." A soft voice called and Nabiki woke to the most unexpected and complicated situation she had ever found herself in to date. Ranma-chan was there on all fours straddling her in bed. A soft wispy laugh drifting from her lips as she stared down into Nabiki's suddenly bug-eyed gaze. Ranma's eyes were vacant, passionate, ...clearly amused!

'Okay, red alert.' Nabiki soundly declared, body jerking stiff as a board. Why Ranma was here didn't matter, the fact 'she' was here in 'that' condition did. Just what Nabiki needed right now, a warm and fuzzy 'very friendly' Ranma-chan in her bed. No, that was just such a 'really' bad idea!

"R..ranma!? Um hey... what are you doing in my bed." Nabiki felt pale with sweat, her eyes 'tried' not to dart and peer through the collar of Ranma's baggy night shirt to see it all just dangling there, but of course they failed. Ranma looked quite... flustered and Nabiki suspected if this encounter lasted any longer then another moment she would end up the same.

"I came to see my fiancée." Ranma chuckled in an overly relaxed and borderline lewd manner. Then leaned down in a shockingly cattish manner, didn't he hate cats, before tapping her on the nose with an impish little grin. "Don't you think we should get to know each other a little better now?"

Nabiki stared... just stared as a metaphorical 'crack' shatter the pane of glass that was her reality. Ranma-chan... Ranma-chan... initiating intimacy. Ranma-chan in her bed. Ranma in female form, in her bed, initiating intimacy. Warning, did not compute... processor error. Please reboot reality, something has hit the 'oh my god what the hell is going on, this can't be real, please send help!' industrial fan.

"You're so cute when your speechless." Ranma sing-songed sweetly and began to lean down in a clear intent to plant one right on her. 'She' didn't get that far.

"Not a chance." Nabiki's self preservation kicked in on time, her hand shooting up to slap over and seal Ranma-chan's lips from contact with her own. "Go any further Saotome, and even a lifetime of hard labour won't be enough to pay the tab you'll owe me." Ranma-chan attempted to respond, but it was all gibberish in Nabiki's hand. So she pulled it away every ready to slap it back in place if need be.

"Really, you hate me that much?" Ranma-chan pouted 180 degrees about-faced on the emotion scale. Pouting and looking 'genuinely' hurt it left Nabiki gawking. Stunned she was unable to respond as Ranma-chan began to tear up. "It's because I'm in girl form isn't it. You don't like me as a girl!" Nabiki opened her mouth, but Ranma had already hopped from her bed onto the windowsill, cast one last tearful glance back, and out she went.

"Like you... as a girl?" Nabiki stammered... Ranma wanted to like her as a girl!? Sanity, inhibition, and all that she regarded as her pride she threw right out the window. "What the hell am I still sitting here for!?" She cried jumping from bed bolting to her window to see Ranma-chan enter the dojo. Turning she dashed out the room like a bloodhound on a scent. Blazing through the hall, nearly tripping down the stairs, jumping over the dining table and hitting the boardwalk, she desperately thumped her along it till she reached and threw open the dojo doors.

"I don't hate you Ranma, I don't hate you at all! I love you! Please let me love you as a girl!" She declared at the top of her lungs, then opened her eyes. They boggle and nearly explode from her head at once.

"Ahh, thats cool Nabiki. But it's a little late." A iron-pumping oiled-up 'entirely' male and shirtless muscle-building Ranma chuckled. "I just found the cure, who would of thought it was pumping iron?" Like some comedic mockery of a workout gym every other major male martial artists Nabiki knew in town was right there alongside him... pumping iron. The sweat, the intensity, the sheer... sheer manly aura of it all... She turned away, raised a hand... and somehow there was a convenient pistol in it for her to pull the trigger... and put her out of her misery.

Nabiki awoke with a wildly horrified glare on her face, eye twitching with extreme irritation. That dream... No, just no. She was not even going to give it the satisfaction of being acknowledge. Turning over in bed, still the middle of the night, she pulled her covers back up over her shoulder's and promptly began a quiet mantra. 'Forget it, just forget it ever happened... wont remember come morning. Sleep now, sleep and forget.'

Morning came.

"Oh my. Nabiki, you look terrible. Did you not sleep well?" Kasumi covered her mouth as her eyes caught Nabiki descended the stairs. There was no verbal response, just a crazed bloodshot maddening stare that clearly said 'don't ask, not a word, I'll kill you.'

"Oh dear..." Kasumi frowned with concern as Nabiki stumbled passed like a zombie. When she rounded the corner to the dining room and found Ranma and Akane both working out with aerobics weights the strangest thing happened. Nabiki stiffen straight and gave a sound similar to a strangled animal, laughed, then turn back retuning the way she came back up the stairs.

"Dream... still dreaming... all a dream." Nabiki's eyes looked frightful and the laugh that filtered back down the stairs... disturbing.

"Maybe she has a little cold. I should make her favorite for lunch. That should make her feel better." Kasumi pondered than with a bright smile decided. Yes, she would change the menu and hoped everything was all right. Also, maybe she would ask Nabiki what was so amusing later, she sure was laughing a lot more often lately. Maybe she was just happy because she was Ranma's fiancée now? Even she had overheard Nabiki's confession. Oh she was so happy Nabiki was happy. She wished them both the best.


End file.
